The Spiral Notebook

Second Winner!

2009-06-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

Our second winner is: nuclearsugars!

If this is you, please email me at lacylu42 at gmail dot com to claim your prize!

Have you entered my great Harry Potter giveaway yet? Click here to enter! The contest lasts for two more weeks. All you have to do to enter is tell me your favorite moment from the Harry Potter Saga!

(Drawing by my dad, Wayne Boggs.)

First Contest Winner!

2009-06-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

Using a random number generator, I picked our first winner of the Harry Potter prize pack!

Our first winner is...orexisbella!

I have sent you an email with all the deets for collecting your books!!!!!

If you're not orexisbella, I still have good news: you can still enter! I'm giving away FOUR MORE SETS of books! Just go to the contest post and leave a comment with your favorite moment from the Harry Potter saga, and you're entered to win!

Don't comment here—go to the official contest post to win!

Review: The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

2009-06-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

My good friend Cate is a professor of American history, and so I was thrilled that she would let me re-post her review of "The True Meaning of Smekday" for this blog. Enjoy!

The True Meaning of Smekday
by Adam Rex
review by Cate

I love this book!

Here's the deal: the Boov invade earth. The tell humans that they all have to move to certain parts of Earth so that the Boov can have the rest (Americans get to move to Florida) and they sign treaties to show they're ...more I love this book!

Here's the deal: the Boov invade earth. The tell humans that they all have to move to certain parts of Earth so that the Boov can have the rest (Americans get to move to Florida) and they sign treaties to show they're serious about their promises. Only they end up liking Florida, so all the Americans have to move to Arizona. The Boov reckon humans can have that forever. Maybe.

(A children's book with an allegory for the colonization of Native lands? Be still my heart!)

Amid all this chaos is eleven-year-old Gratuity Tucci, who has to try and get to Florida on her own when her mother's abducted by the Boov. Her cat, called Pig, comes along for the ride, and somewhere in Pennsylvania they adopt a Boov (in a way). He goes by the name of J. Lo.

(A children's book with a kickass female protagonist who - in a beautiful moment on pages 280-281 observes, "Mark Twain said the difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and the lightning bug and people think he was good right? Didn't write any decent girl characters, as far as I can tell, but otherwise, fine."? Oh, SNAP.)

Just when you think you have the Boov figured out, along come the Gorp. The Gorp communicate mostly by hitting each other. And they smell pretty bad.

As Gratuity - 'Tip' to her friends - tries to work out how to save the world from the aliens, we're treated to a sharp, witty meta-analysis of American history and culture. The people who try to help Tip look for her mother send out an APB for a black woman, since Tip herself is black - they're very confused to realize Tip's mom is white. Chief Shouting Bear (real name, Frank) gleefully yells "YOU STOLE MY LAND" at white liberals living in Roswell, corrects the names that Tip uses for various local Native communities, and calls her Stupidlegs on account of wanting to be fair to the fact that she's half-white. There's an illustrated history of Boov evolution in the middle of the book that makes some striking points about the power of the church, the oppressive tendencies of government, and the problem of global warming. And then, over and above all else, there's language - Boov words scattered throughout the text that will encourage anyone who reads this book to start calling people poomps and kacknackers, but perhaps more beautifully, J. Lo's English shifts and changes and reflects what he's learned in books, in school, and finally by talking to humans. It makes for some moments of prime comedy, but there's an incredible thoughtfulness about words and communication beneath.

All this in a book aimed at 9-12 year olds. I would love a book aimed at 37-50 year olds that was this freaking sophisticated.

The True Meaning of Smekday is 100% poomp free. Buy yours now.

CONTEST!

2009-06-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

OMG! This is huge news, people.

I have FIVE Harry Potter prize packs to give away! The prize packs consist of a paperback copy of EACH of the last THREE Harry Potter novels.

I'm so excited that I CAN'T STOP USING CAPSLOCKS!!!!!
This is the first ever giveaway I've ever done on this site, and I'm really stoked about it. The prize pack includes Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the breathtaking finish to this remarkable series. The final chapter to Harry’s adventures will be released in paperback July 7^th! It all comes down to this — a final face off between good and evil. You plan to pull out all the stops, but every time you solve one mystery, three more evolve.

So, here's how this is going to work: I'm going to RANDOMLY choose five winners, one each week for the next three weeks and then TWO winners the fourth week.

How do you enter? Just leave a comment on this post and answer the following question:

What is your favorite moment from the Harry Potter saga?

Again, I will be selecting one entry at random to be the winner. Next week I'll have a different question and a different winner. And so on and so forth for the duration of the contest.

ENTER NOW! Enter often, if you like. I'm not picky!

SO EXCITING!

Review: Heroes of the Valley, by Jonathan Stroud

2009-06-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

Elliot (13) is my other cousin who has graciously agreed to review for me some books he read. Thanks, Elliot, and good job; sometimes, a bad review is the hardest to write.

**SPOILERS** This review contains spoilers for "Heroes of the Valley"

Heroes of the Valley, by Jonathan Stroud
Submitted by Elliot

This is such a bad book I don’t even want to write about it, so you’ll just have to deal with my opinion of how this book should be rewritten. First off is the title, it should not be Heroes of The Valley, because it’s not about the Heroes whose graves monsters fear. It’s about some smart-alecky kid. Mr. Smart-aleck’s name is Halli Sveinsson of the House of Svein, who likes to play tricks on everyone, so he has no friends and spends a lot of time on his own being punished.

When his inebriated, murdering uncle gets murdered by Ragnar of the Hakonsson House, Halli follows his uncle’s footsteps in vengeance yet kills Ragnar by complete accident when a burning tapestry falls on him. (This kid is so not brave.) This starts a blood feud. Ragnar’s dad comes in with the Calvary, planning to lay waste to The Sveinsson House, but did not expect Halli to finally have a growth spurt in maturity and set up defenses.

In the final battle Halli and his girlfriend Aud leave the valley, which is a big no no, leading Hord and his men out of the protected area and into the waste land controlled by Trows, mindless creatures that fancy meat and pop out of the ground like gofers. This is the only well written part of the book, which is extremely creepy because these creatures get inside Halli’s uncles moldy body and try to eat him. But the sun comes up and Halli walks into the sunrise with his girlfriend.

This is a terrible ending because, in a part of the book I did not talk about, Halli and Aud find a path out of the valley which they believe is the path the first settlers took when they first came to the valley. I think that the author should have written about them following this path and finding other civilizations.

Review: Need by Carrie Jones

2009-06-09T16:55:00.000-07:00

While I'm busy moving into my house for the next few weeks, my cousins Olivia (16) and Elliot (13) will be blogging for me! These are their own opinions and their own reviews of the books they've read. Thanks guys! You're awesome.

Need by Carrie Jones
reviewed by Olivia

I enjoyed this book despite the flawed plot and ‘amateur’ writing style. I hate to use that term especially because this isn’t Jones’s first book, but there were time gaps and the main conflict wasn’t explained fully. The story deals with one person’s take of a situation and needed the opposing side to make a complete picture. Explaining the conflict would explain the title.

I remember finishing the book and having to find a link between the title and the story. Zara, our main character, was shipped off to the backlands of Maine in order to keep her safe after her father’s unexpected death. A good start; the audience now has a reason to keep reading. Why was her father in danger and why would sending her to Maine help?

Jones cheats by not answering the first question completely and—I don’t think this will reveal anything but—sending Zara to Maine was the last thing I would have done to keep her safe. I had that figured not to far along in the plot.

The other characters, while a bit stereotypical, are well written and interesting. Her unofficial boyfriend Nick has more depth than some characters I’ve read and more depth than her best friend Issie or Nick’s best friend Devyn. On Jones’s behalf she wrote Nick’s secret quite well, I only had it figured from reading many similar books.

It was odd that all characters so readily accepted the existence of pixies and faeries. In all other books of this sort there is at least an initial doubt. Zara’s obsession with fears doesn’t really tie into the story and though it heads each ‘chapter’ it does a poor job of describing the chapter.

As for Jones’s style, the story flowed well with only a few places where the timeline gapped. Scenes were well described, giving readers a good mental picture without being flowery. The suspense was not overdone and helped move the story along. There was a reference to the work of Stephen King, but seeing as I haven’t read any of his books I can’t say if Jones was trying to mimic his particular style. I really enjoyed Nick’s confession scene and the scenes involving the mysterious man Zara sees were creepy enough to make me stop reading early in the morning.

The end, however, was unsatisfying and cruel; I felt that Zara and her gang should have handled the situation differently and perhaps more diplomatically. Again I think their actions might have been justified if I knew more about the pixie's predicament and his feelings and motives.

All in all a good book; not particularly enlightening, but a delicious guilty pleasure.

Published!

2009-06-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

My copy of the "TBR Tallboy" arrived in the mail yesterday! Huzzah! I have a short story published in a literary magazine! :)

Playing Catch-Up

2009-05-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

Oy. I'm behind on my reading—and my reviewing!—but I've made a new committment to reading a little bit every night, so hopefully I'll get caught up again soon. But I wanted to do a little mini reviewing for ya to catch up on some of the things I've read lately!

Absolutely Maybe by Lisa Yee
rating: 3 of 5 stars
The best thing about Lisa Yee's books are the stunning characters. These kids come alive off the page and leap into your memory so fully realized you'd swear you met Maybe rinsing Kool-Aid out of her hair in your dorm bathroom and that you bumped into Ted walking down Hollywood Boulevard in his platform shoes. I found the plot a little far-fetched and contrived at times, but overall, loved the characters enough to stick with them through to the end.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
rating: 4 of 5 stars
Neil Gaiman is the king of the creepy kid's book, but this one is less creepy than "Coraline." I believe I read in an interview (or perhaps on his blog) that he thought adults were much more creeped out by his works than kids are, and I think that's true. Kids will accept that Bod lives with dead people as quickly and easily as Bod does.

I loved the story of Bod and the Graveyard folk and the Jacks, but the story left me wanting more. I wanted to know MORE about the Jacks in particular, more about Silas—who he really was and why he was really there—and more about what he and Miss Lepscue were doing while they were away. I also wanted to know more about how Bod would get by in the regular world. I suppose, however, that's a mark of a good book, when it leaves you wanting for more.

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was kind of an odd book, but I did enjoy it. It really gave me a sense of who Marcelo was and how it was to live like him. But, as a reader, I could never truly sink into his persona and see the world through his eyes. I was extremely uncomfortable in certain scenes when Marcelo was being exploited, or when he misunderstood social interactions, and those moments were perhaps the most powerful for me in the book.

View all my reviews.

Wintergirls

2009-05-12T09:49:00.001-07:00

Laurie Halse Anderson posted on her blog today about some controversy that has arisen over her newest book, Wintergirls. Some critics are claiming that her book is a guide for teenagers with eating disorders. One commenter at the New York Times website even went so far as to call it "anorexic porn."

I don't know if it is or it isn't, because I couldn't finish Wintergirls.

I have never had a diagnosed eating disorder, but I have been overweight since I was a child, and through my teenage years, I engaged in a lot of secretive behavior surrounding my eating. I hid food, I gorged myself in private, I thought about food constantly. And I recognized a lot of those feelings and behaviors in the main character of Anderson's book.

I couldn't figure out why I was so uncomfortable when I started reading Wintergirls, but after about 20 pages, I was ready to throw it across the room. When I stopped to ask myself why it was making me so angry and unhappy, I realized it had touched a real nerve for me. I chose not to finish reading it, because the subject made me so uncomfortable.

Has anyone else read the book? What do you think of the claims that it could be seen as a "guide" for risky behaviors?

TBR Tallboy

2009-04-27T12:22:00.001-07:00

Woo hoo!

Bookshelves of Doom is accepting orders for the first issue of the TBR Tallboy!

And if you look closely, that is my name right there on the cover, it is.

I might be excited about this.

Go ye and buy one if you want to! They're only $5!

Good News!

2009-04-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

One of my short stories, called "186 Miles to Nowhere," has been accepted for the inagural issue of the TBR Tallboy that Leila at Bookshelfs of Doom is producing! The issue will be out June 1, and you'll be able to subscribe at bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com.

Read Around the Web

2009-02-22T13:37:00.000-08:00

Just a few things that caught my eye this week on the blogosphere:

Sheila at Wands and Words reviews Skeleton Creek, a new book and video mashup. Interesting!

Editorial Anonymous is doing a series of definitions for the perplexed defining everything from galleys to proofs. Good if you're new to publishing.

Leila at Bookshelves of Doom reviews Eon: Dragoneye Reborn despite the iffy cover art.

Holly Lisle did a free mini-writing class on Blog Talk Radio about creating characters with character.

And if you haven't been over there, it's plot month over at Writer Unboxed, and there are a TON of great posts (that I am WAY behind on reading, but need to read SO BADLY!).

Review: Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith

2009-02-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith

In life, there is often a frustrating lack of big, singular moments that define a person's struggle. Real life often meanders and flows without providing those ultimate scenes that define a person's journey It's one reason I think memoir and autobiography are two of the hardest genres to write, because a story needs those big moments on which to turn. Were Flygirl a memoir, I might be able to forgive the lack of a convincing climax; for a work of fiction, it's a lot harder to ignore.

I have to admit, when I picked up an ARC of Flygirl and read the back, I thought the marketing people had made an egregious call, casting a model for the cover who looked nearly white for a book about a black pilot. It wasn't until I read a guest blog by author Sherri Smith that I realized it was part of the plot. Flygirlis about passing, about a light-skinned black girl pretending to be white. According to the same blog, "Once upon a time in the days of slavery, African American slaves who traveled away from their owners were required show passes to anyone who asked for them, to assure that they were on legitimate business. People who were not questioned, who were light enough, due to the blending of their genetics with those of the master's family, were said to be able to 'pass.'"

It's not an easy topic to tackle, and I was a lot more interested in reading the book when I realized that was what it was about. The story follows Ida Mae Jones, a young black woman in Louisiana at the cusp of World War II. Ida Mae learned to fly her father's crop duster when she was younger, but a combination of her gender, her race, and the gasoline rationing for the war has grounded her. When the U.S. enters the war, the army forms the Women Airforce Service Pilots — the WASPs. Ida Mae sees her chance to help her country and do what she loves, but it will not only require her to survive as a woman in a man's army, it will require her to pretend to be something she's not: white. Her light skin makes it possible, but is it the right thing to do?

Although the book raises those kinds of important questions, it never answers them, not for Ida Mae personally or in any broader sense. I think the biggest problem I had with the book was that Ida Mae only wanders vaguely towards a conclusion, even for herself. In fact, her character arc flattens out so disappointingly, I found myself incredulous as I realized I was reading the last page of the book.

There was no climax for Ida Mae as a character. She makes what feels like a split second decision about whether or not she will continue passing on the very last page of the book, and it feels anticlimactic.

And for me, that made the story fall flat. In real life, things sometimes work that way. Sometimes people don't come to life-changing conclusions or learn lessons that change them in a fundamental way, but it's one of the key tenants of a strong story. Ida Mae doesn't change from the beginning of the story — for better or for worse. She starts in one place and ends up in much the same place she started, despite her experiences. Additionally, she faces no consequences of any weight for her decision. I'm not making any personal judgments about whether or not she should have faced consequences from a moral standpoint, but from a story standpoint, I think it would have made a much stronger book. The story itself never seems to reach a climax, rather just petering out, as though it just ran out of gas. As dangerous a proposition for a story as for a pilot in her plane.

If you like Flygirl, you might also like:
Whale Talk by Chris Cutcher
Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson

100!

2009-02-15T19:26:00.000-08:00

I have exactly 100 books on my Goodreads profile. It just seemed momentous. ;)

Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

2009-02-06T13:32:00.000-08:00

Todd Hewitt won't be a man for 30 more days, the only boy left in a world full of men. Noisy men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise, every man and boy can hear the thoughts of every other man and boy, whether they want to or not. But there's something secret about the way boys become men in this place, and before he knows it, Todd is running for his life from these men with his talking dog because of something impossible: silence.

The Knife of Never Letting Go is a powerful book and a bleak one, exploring a dystopian world through the candid, engaging voice of Todd as he narrates his Homeric journey. The world building is impeccable, believable, and thorough enough that as Todd begins to discover the discrepancies between his version of history and the truth, the reader is mostly carried right along with his shock (though as Todd progresses on his journey, his revelations become easier to guess). Todd's own voice, his tone and diction, are what elevate this from being a simple adventure sci-fi story to something much more literary and engrossing. Ness' use of language grabbed me from the first page — from the very first sentence — and refused to let go.

In Todd's first encounter with the preacher, Aaron, he describes the man's face: "He smiles down at me, thru that beard of his, smiles down at me in the grass. A smiling fist." And later, "I can smell the breath that comes outta his mouth, smell the weight of it, like fingers grabbing for me."

Every word of this book feels carefully chosen and executed, from the ones illiterate Todd misspells to the words of the Noise, picked out in different fonts to convey the intrusion of another person's thoughts on your own.

And each action feels carefully chosen as well. Everything in this book is a larger symbol for any of a multitude of different topics, covering everything from modern issues like gender equality, violence against women, xenophobia, the hypocrisies of organized religion, and information overload to archetypes as universal as The Fall.

The major symbol of Todd's journey is his knife, given to him by one of his adopted fathers when he is forced to run from his town. Todd wrestles with it and its purpose from the very beginning foreshadowing its significance in the final act.

"But a knife ain't just a thing, is it?" he ponders as he is presented his first real opportunity to use it. "It's a choice, it's a thing you do. A knife says yes or no, cut or not, die or don't. A knife takes a decision our of your hand and puts it in the world and it never goes back again."

The knife is the symbol of Todd's arduous, violent journey toward manhood. It physically represents the choice he has to make about what kind of man he will be: the kind his adopted father, Ben, wants him to be, or the kind Aaron and the rest of the men of the town want him to be. Once Todd knows the true nature of the choice, it seems like it would be cut and dried, and in a fairy tale land where the only ending is happily ever after, it would be. But Todd's life is anything but a fairy tale, and the fact that his choice is an impossible one, even with the blatant forces of good and evil staring him in the face, raises this book to the level of literature instead of merely adventure.

The knife is alive.

As long as I hold it, as long as I use it, the knife lives, lives in order to take life, but it has to be commanded, it has to have me tell it to kill, and it wants to, it wants to plunge and thrust and cut and stab and gouge, but I have to want it as well, my will has to join with its will.

I'm the one who allows it and I'm the one responsible.

But the knife wanting it makes it easier.

But the knife barely scratches the surface of the deeper meaning woven into this book. I'd be extremely interested to read a feminist interpretation of the book, as the roles of women and their relationships to men play out across the warped stage of this planet cursed with men who can hear one another's thoughts. As it is, this book has stayed with me since I picked it up, and after I put it down. I'm still thinking about it, worrying it around in my brain, trying to glean more meaning out of it.

Marked for ages 14 and up, this isn't a book for young readers, no matter how precocious, but mature readers who can handle the literary tone will devour it and — word of warning — be extremely anxious for the next in the series when they reach the entirely unsatisfying cliff-hanger ending.

If you liked this book, you might also enjoy:
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

Pre-review: The Knife of Never Letting Go

2009-02-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

I finished The Knife of Never Letting Go
last night. Holy shamolies. As I was reading it, I just thought it was a good adventure/quest story with an amazing voice, but as I got to the end, I started seeing all the deeper stuff in it: gender roles and relations, the sins of organized religion, the problem of violence against women, the archetype of the fall, a modern Adam and Eve, all this religious imagery, the danger of information overload. It's deep stuff, man.

So, while I really REALLY liked the book, it's going to take me a while to formulate my opinions on it.

Also, it totally made me cry. I think the last book I cried at was HP #7.

Awards: Armando and the Blue Tarp School

2009-02-03T15:06:00.000-08:00

My friend Hernn Sosa illustrated the wonderful picture book, Armando and the Blue Tarp School, which has just been nominated for the California Young Readers Medal!

The CYRM is voted on by students in California, so I would think that would mean it's an even bigger honor.

Armando and the Blue Tarp School is a beautiful book based on a real life hero, David Lynch, who teaches the children living in a colonia near the Tiajuana city dump. The book touches on some powerful themes, including equal opportunities and social justice, but manages never to be preachy or didactic.

Congrats, Hernan! Your nomination is deeply deserved!

Idea Starters in One Sentence

2009-01-31T07:57:00.000-08:00

Hurting for story ideas? Head over to One Sentence: True stories told in one sentence. Any one of these would be an awesome first line of a book, like:

I only realized how strange my life was when I received a full scholarship for having a father in prison for murder.

Sounds like a great first line for a quirky, angsty YA. Or:

I've been pooped on by a hawk while wearing a $10,000 Oscar de le Renta gown.

might be a line from a YA chick lit book. And:

That night I fell out of bed and smacked my nose on the metal bedframe, and the next morning my dad joked that the toothfairy pushed me.

sounds like an awesome vignette for a humorous coming-of-age book.

This stuff is gold, people!

Review: Chosen, The Lost Books Series, Book 1

2009-01-28T09:03:00.000-08:00

Chosen by Ted Dekker

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Johnis' world has been all but destroyed by a terrible plague that turned the land to desert and most of the people into the disease-ravaged Horde. Only the seven forests surrounding the seven lakes protect the Forest Dwellers from the same fate. Because of the Horde's constant attacks on the forests, the leader of the Forest Dwellers, Thomas Hunter, has been forced to lower the recruitment age for the Forest Guard to 16.

Johnis wasn't chosen to be one of the thousand new recruits to the Forest Guard — too small for his age — but by a twist of fate, he is chosen to lead them. When he and three other leaders set out on their final test to prove their characters, their mission takes an unexpected, but preordained turn, and Johnis discovers that his fate may already have been decided.

Parts of this book were very intriguing. I liked the world and its rules about the lake water being necessary to stave off infection from the terrible skin disease. I liked a lot of the foreshadowing. I particularly loved the little glimpses Dekker gives that this world is somehow tied to our own world, as in the following passage of a dream Johnis has:

This wasn't the threatening man-beast, nor Horde, but Johnis couldn't breathe anyway. Something was very wrong. The man wore a shirt made from thin fabric with writing across the breast, and fitted blue pants. Leather boots — but not the dress of a warrior.

More than his dress, the man's demeanor was out of place. Rather than walking like a skeleton in the desert, this man looked healthy. As if he'd had all the water he needed.

[...]

The man motioned to the dune behind him to the right. "There's a killer forcing us to play a game. I need you to help me find the cops. Tell them to get to the library. It's all about the library, tell them."

"Cop?" Johnis had never heard the word.

The story insinuates that the leader of the Forest Dwellers, Thomas Hunter, is also from our world, but much to my disappointment, that story line never goes anywhere. Turns out, this is part of a much larger series, which I didn't realize until I got to the very end and saw the advertisements. The ads in the back of the book claim that you can read this series without reading the other, but it explained a lot about my biggest problems with the book: the way Dekker glosses over some of the finer details about his world (probably because he's already explained them dozens of times in his other books), the somewhat thin characterization of his protagonists.

In fact, the thing I felt while reading it was that it felt a little like fan fiction: someone was adding a new story to an already established canon, but if you weren't already part of the fandom, you would be a little lost.

I also found out after reading Chosen that the companion series is considered Christian fiction, but I can say right up front that other than some pretty blatant good/evil black/white imagery, I didn't see much allegory in this one in particular.

I wouldn't say you have to read the other series before picking up Chosen, because I haven't read them myself, but I would venture it might make the book a little more nuanced. On it's own, it's a tad flat; a fun adventure quest story without much meat.

Fans of fantasy and quest novels age 12+ will enjoy this. (Some violence, but nothing very graphic or objectionable.)

Check out some other books you might like:

All my reviews.

Film Reviews: Inkheart

2009-01-27T05:48:00.000-08:00

Genevieve Valentine has a review of the new "Inkheart" movie over at tor.com, and the news doesn't sound great.

The plot continues apace, wearing out both the narrative and the audience’s patience—we often meet a character just before the next chase scene descends. For a movie about the power of words, Inkheart at times feels like a Benny Hill sketch, with small groups of people running feverishly back and forth between various charming locales.

Despite its inevitable shortcomings, however, she does find some redeeming qualities in the film. Click on over to her review to read the whole thing.

Real Life Teens: Sex

2009-01-27T05:35:00.000-08:00

Interesting article in the New York Times today; it seems that rampant teenage promiscuity is pretty much a myth:

Although the data is clear, health researchers say it is often hard to convince adults that most teenagers have healthy attitudes about sex.

“I give presentations nationwide where I’m showing people that the virginity rate in college is higher than you think and the number of partners is lower than you think and hooking up more often than not does not mean intercourse,” Dr. Bogle said. “But so many people think we’re morally in trouble, in a downward spiral and teens are out of control. It’s very difficult to convince people otherwise.”

Important info for those of us writing for and about teenagers (not to mention parents thereof!).

How much do you rely on your experiences of real teens when you write them, and how much do you imagine? For me, I think it's more of the latter than I'd like to admit.

ALA Award Winners

2009-01-26T15:19:00.000-08:00

The American Library Association announced its annual literary award winners today and one of our Boulder-area SCBWI members won a Newberry!!!

Congratulations to Ingrid Law for her novel, Savvy!

ALA Midwinter

2009-01-25T12:42:00.000-08:00

SUCH a great day yesterday! Some of the Boulder SCBWIs and I took a field trip to the American Library Association's midwinter conference.

I had no idea what to expect, but we made our way downtown and paid our $25 to get onto the exhibit floor. WOW! According to the literature, there were more than 400 exhibitors. But the best part? The very best part? All the publishers who were exhibiting were giving away advance reading copies. I introduced myself to all the marketing people as a blogger, and they were all really nice and happy to talk to me.

What does this mean for you? It means that you're going to get the skinny on some of the best books coming out this year — maybe even before they come out! That includes Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson and Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr!

Also, as you can probably see, I've made some vast improvements to the blog's look and feel. Let me know what you think (and if you find any bugs I need to squash).

Review: Raven Rise (Pendragon Book Nine)

2009-01-21T15:52:00.000-08:00

Raven Rise by D.J. MacHale

My reviewrating: 3 of 5 stars
In the ninth installment of Bobby Pendragon's quest to save Halla from the clutches of Saint Dane, things go from crummy to worse. Mark and Courtney don't know what to believe when Saint Dane tells them that Bobby has given up the fight, don't know what they've started when Mark loses his traveler ring, and don't know what to do when they return to a Second Earth where nothing is as it once was.

These books are really interesting to me on a craft level. On the one hand, the plotting is top notch; with most of this series, I think I see the final twist coming, I usually predict one right, and then WHAM! Something comes flying in out of left field that I never anticipated. But it doesn't feel like a cheat. It's just really excellent story telling.

On the other hand, I find myself pretty much constantly annoyed with some of the actual writing. D.J. MacHale is a perfect example of telling instead of showing. What he normally does is show us something and then tell us about it. Several times. For example:

"Welcome back," he said warmly, as if he actually meant it. "I was afraid you'd miss the festivities. Close your eyes; I'll put some lights on."

What a courteous guy! He didn't want me to be uncomfortable when he flicked on the lights. How thoughtful. I'd have thanked him if I hadn't wanted to hurt him.

MacHale is trying for the easy conversationalism and sarcasm of Bobby's internal monologue, but really, he just succeeds in telling us the same thing twice. And he does it over and over and over again throughout the book. The tome's 544 pages could probably have been trimmed by a third by an editor with a canny eye. As it is, I spend a lot of time skimming with these books.

Also, his tenses bother me. Everything Bobby writes in his journals is in the past tense. Everything. Even things that are still true. If he means, "I love Coke," as in, he still loves it even when he is writing the journal, he will nevertheless say "I loved Coke," as if the love had passed. I know, it's a grammarian thing, but it bugs the heck out of me and has for all nine books.

But that's the interesting part. I still love the story. I'm still coming back for more. And I'm still REALLY disappointed that the last book of the series isn't out yet so I can run out and read it.

Definitely good for guys, especially guys who like a series they can sink their teeth into. But girls will probably like it just as much. Hooray for female characters who kick ass!

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Assuming makes an ass out of you and me.

2009-01-18T11:45:00.000-08:00

Last week, I got an email from someone who'd found my name through an SCBWI web page, and wanted to invite me to join a writing group, and stated that one of their requirements was: "We specifically want members who are interested in promoting a Christian world view via children's literature. The writing does NOT need to be explicitly religious or spiritual, but we want members who can commit to this purpose."

I have to admit that I was more than a little taken aback by this. Set aside, for a moment, the question of whether or not children's literature should espouse a particular religious world view, and consider the blind audacity of emailing someone of whom you know nothing about and inviting them to join your religious group.

She found my name on a list of children's writers; she knew absolutely nothing more about me. And yet, her first assumption was that I was Christian. It doesn't matter whether I am or I am not; what matters is that, as a member of the majority, she automatically assumed I was too. I can hardly imagine a Jewish person making the same assumption, let alone a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist.

I will tell you that I was sorely tempted to mess with her and write back that I couldn't join her group because I was Muslim or Hindu or something else, but I decided against it and just responded that I didn't think I would fit in with their group. (In so doing, I too was making assumptions, that they weren't "my" kind of Christians, that they'd be offended by the use of magic in my stories, or that they'd try to dissuade me from writing about sex or using swear words should the need arise.)

It got me thinking a lot about the assumptions we all make in daily life. As a white, middle class female, I know I make a lot of assumptions based on my own status and privilege, and it worries me. I would rather take an active role in educating myself and draw my own conclusions about my bias than have it pointed out to me by an unhappy reviewer many years down the line.

Ignorance is a frightening prospect, especially for those of us who like to consider ourselves well educated. But the first step is recognizing it, and the second is choosing to educate ourselves and move away from ignorance toward understanding.